Tuesday, March 23, 2010

I've made a few pie video recipes on this blog over the years, but every single time I've used either a frozen shell, or ready to use sheets of dough. Some of you may have been thinking that I didn't know to make it from scratch, or was afraid to show you my secret recipe.

Well, neither is true. I make a damn nice piecrust, but I just choose not to. And, there are really no secret pie dough recipes. The formula is pretty standard; flour, fat, and water combined with the same technique by virtually every chef. You will see a splash of vinegar added to the ice water, which is suppose to reduce gluten formation and help keep the crust tender and flaky – but that's about as much of a secret as you're going to get.

This version is an all butter recipe (my personal favorite), and is made using a food processor, which makes the always critical "cutting" the butter into the flour step very simple. By the way, you can make a double batch of this, and freeze the individually wrapped dough for future pie-related adventures. If you'd like the apple pie filling recipe, you can find that here.

Below the recipe, I've included my mother Pauline's Key Lime Pie video, where she demonstrates how to properly "crimp" the dough edges to get that classic scalloped crust effect. I could have showed you in my video, but she has much nicer nails. Enjoy!

I've heard of Key Lime Pie but I never knew what went in it. I love making pies. (The first pie I ever made, apple, won a blue ribbon at our state fair, which, coincidentally, sells Key Lime Pie on a Stick! Oddly enough, I don't care for pie myself so I always give them away.

My boss' mother invited me to their home for Easter and I was at a loss as to what to bring but now I know it has to be your mom's Key Lime Pie! I'll have a trial run before Easter and bring it to work to see how it goes over and will report back.

P.S. I had to know what the culinary term was for pricking the pie crust with a fork so I checked several sites with lists of culinary terms. They all called it pricking.

Vinegar is a new trick. I thought I was clever when I picked up the add clear alcohol (e.g. Vodka) for part of the water, I'm sure you've seen Alton Brown's trick for this, to reduce gluten formation. Wonder which is better, my guess is vinegar, or you would have done the other way!

By accident yesterday I ended up with pie crust that had been left on the counter for an hour or so. My SO started making a quiche and got distracted so when I wandered into the kitchen about an hour later, I found half rolled pie dough on the counter and, because of the time and the fact I wanted to eat, decided to finish the job without rechilling the dough.

I blind baked the shell and then made the quiche, half expecting to be a disaster.

It turned out to be the flakiest and tenderest dough I've ever had.

So, your mom may be right -- there may be no need to rest the dough in the fridge at all.

I all my ingredients ready to go, and figured I would watch the video one more time just before making the crust. I noticed your printed recipe just calls for butter, while your video calls for unsalted butter. Which is it?

My first crust might be a bit salty, because I added salt to the flower, as well as used salted butter.

My second crust might be a bit closer to what you wanted, as I used salted butter, but did not add salt to the flour.

Just wanted to point this inconsistency out so you can correct your printed recipe.

I thought it was Christopher Kimball from Cooks Illustrated who came up with the vodka pie crust. Anyway, I tried it and liked it but it definitely needs to be chilled or it's way too soft to roll (I speak from experience). For my other piecrust (without vodka), I find that chilling makes it too hard to roll.Jackie

I just made 3 pies for easter using this recipe. It was hard to roll out after being in the refridgerator. I tried leaving it out for a bit to soften up, but was still hard to roll out, definitely not like in Chef John's video. Maybe i needed more liquid?

chef it came out great, specially I like the food processor. I haven't seen anybody using it in any other video, really made the job easy. I was not having vineger so made it without one, can't resist the temptation.

I have a question! I noticed that the key lime pie was pre-baked but that you didn't use ceramic beans to hold down the dough. I don't have beans so I tried this and the sides of the pie fall down! How do you do it?! Thanks!!

hi chef john, i saw your recipe and i was wondering, many recipes for double crust call for as little as 4 tablespoons of water, while yours calls for 7, including another tablespoon of water. the other recipes have the same proportions of flour, salt, and butter. how much water should i use?

Hi chef john its my first time to see your videos, and i'm impress with your recipes an dall based from the viewers and ofcpurse your cooking/baking,, anyhoo im just wondering what is the egg wash you use cus i'm kind of confused on what to use, is it egg whites with milk? or just milk? or milk with egg whites? or egg yolk with milk :)

Chef John, you have no idea how many times I've been staring at your perfect looking pie crust in despair and envy. I've tried making the dough from scratch twice. The first time the bottom was uncooked and the crust was hard. So the next time I increased the heat and the baking time. Much better, bottom was a little undercooked, top could be more tender and flaky.

At what temp and how long do you bake your pies for. And do you use a foil cover to prevent the edges from burning? Thanks!

Hi Chef John,I used your all-butter crust to make strawberry pie so I baked the crust first. I docked the crust and it sunk in to the pan. Did I need an egg-wash, would that firm it up or do I need to do something else. I read somewhere that shortening bakes a stiffer crust. The other thing was that I used a pretty large pan and the dough didn't go out over the lip much at all when I crimped it.

This is for the "without a food processor". My nana made pies for local restaurants for many many years in Maine and she used her hands to mix the shortening and flour and she had the BEST pie crusts ever - flaky, melt in your mouth goodness. I do the same as nana and although I've yet to achieve her perfection - mine are very flaky and good. I use cooking disposable gloves.

Hi Chef John :) I love your recipes and been meaning to try this pie crust. One question tough, what is the equivalents in grams (or ounces) for the 2 sticks of butter? I've been googling trying to find this info, but I've found different measures, from 190 grams to 250 grams.Could you please clarify? Thank you!

I actually find it much easier to handle and make using a pastry blender to mix the flour and i usually substitute the butter with shortening and mix the water vinegar mixture with a fork mainly because i don't HAVE a food processor and when I used my friends it was a total

I'm thinking about buying my first food processor to try out your recipes for double apple pie crust, quiche, ice cream etc but am not sure what size to get.

Because Seoul is a cramped, overpopulated urban city of 15 million and I chop most of my vegetables by knife, I don't have a lot of counterspace. But I don't want the food processor to be too small for making dough for double pie crusts (10 inch pie pan), blending for quiche (and maybe try out ice cream or seafood and cheese to be minced into tortellini filling)..

- what cup size should I get? - is there a particular brand (kitchen aid or cuisinart of phillips or other brand) that you recommend?

i just posted asking your food processor's cup size~ is it better to go with a stand mixer instesd of a food processor?

I already have a 1.5 cup mini-blender for making sauces (maybe it can handle quiche filling) so mainly for the apple pie double crust.. is it better to go with the fp or with a kitchen aid stand mixer with dough hook?

Hello Chef, just chiming in on how AMAZING this crust is. I sent my sister your recipe and all she modify is just adding 2 tbsp of sugar (for sweetness, my bro in law love his stuff super sweet) and it's the flakiest crust I've ever eaten. Very, very sinful.

Being all-butter, it's quite hard to make in our tropical climate with high humidity and temperature but it was so worth it (for our tastebuds). Thanks :)

Okay, I have a question regarding your butter pastry recipes... You have TWO! So, which one do I choose, 1 cup of butter or 1/2 cup of butter with slightly less flour as per the Hand Pies video... I just wanted to check-in with you to make sure this wasn't (oh, oh) an error...

Okay, I borrowed my mom's food processor ( way easier than using a pastry blender! ) and made several batches ( for the freezer ) of the pastry recipe with 1 cup of butter as per the recipe above the posts... Yes, very, very good. I am very happy with the results. Thanks Chef John.

Your all-butter crust recipe has been my go-to for some time, but I'm planning on experimenting with lard. Would you use the same amount of lard as butter by weight? Or would it be different since butter contains water and lard doesn't?

Chef John, you are my (cooking) hero! I am a pretty darned good cook myself but I've had no luck at all with pie crusts. Until this one, that is! Mille grazie! You are on my mind frequently, especially when I bake your fabulous buttermilk biscuits for my man (a Georgia boy who just raves about my/your biscuits and says I'm now an honorary southern girl)!.

In the recipe of the pumpkin pie, do you put the pie crust in oven raw (as for the apple pie) or do you pre-cook it ( like the lime pie)? Do i need to pierce it? Do you put anything on the bottom of the tray so that the pie crust don't get stuck?

Hi Chef John!Thank you so much... You saved Thanksgiving!!! I was put in charge of dessert, having never made a pie in my life! A YouTube search lead me to your blog, and your quick but thorough instructions led me to absolute success. With your instructions for pie crust and apple pie filling, I made the best dessert of the night! It even bested the creme brûlée my sous-chef cousin made... Amazing! The ultimate claim to fame is that my mom ate it and also loved it. She's a devout anti-pie enthusiast and hates all things "pie." That's no longer true. She loved it!!! I had to mix the crust by hand, since my NutriBullet couldn't handle the task, but i found that to be a more enjoyable experience overall. I greatly appreciate how you just cut to the chase. Your blog, the content, and your style of teaching is so exceptional, that I will be a frequent visitor for the rest of my life... I can't thank you enough!!!

Sorry Chef, I am in the countryside in Finland and no chance to get pastry flour for your mothers Key Lime Pie. Is there too much difference at the end if I use normal flour ? We are not going to forget your mother so beautiful hands...

In pricking the pie crust before baking the pie crust for 10 mins., can you use this same method instead of "blind baking" when you put a parchment/wax paper on the crust and weighing the dough down with beans or pie weights?

I cannot help notice your mom's hands. For a mom, she has very pretty hands. Make sure you tell your mom. She can do a video on how she keeps her hands soft.

Just an observation for you :) Real Key Lime Pie is yellow, not green. I'm sure it tastes delicious, but I live in Miami and every Key Lime Pie I have ever eaten is yellow. Matter of fact, they will tell you that if it is green, it's fake. How funny!

i tried to make this recipe today and something definitely was off. I measured 12 oz of flour, used two sticks of very cold butter and 8 tablespoons total of the liquid. The crust was so dry and would not come together, I feel like i definitely handled it too much before i finally decided to add a tad more water. I had to run out to the store to buy refrigerated crust because im afraid this one will be so tough and not roll out properly. I can still see chunks of butter in it though everything. I dont know what went wrong, was really excited to try out this recipe!